Notation is always lossy. And for what its worth, for the entirety of human civilization music has been an aural tradition passed down from teacher to student, and primarily learned by ear. The notation is just whatever is most convenient to people for taking notes at the time.
> The notation is just whatever is most convenient to people for taking notes at the time.
That 'at the time' now seems to have extended to around 400 years (in Western classical tradition for instance, from pre-baroque). The evolution of another type of keyboard demonstrates that convenience is not necessarily the watchword.
